Record Reviews

Witch HatsWound Of A Little Horse

Witch Hats meld menace with humour, chuckling casually while they go about bruising your ribs with a blunt axe. For their long-awaited first widely-distributed release, the band unmistakably out themselves as Melbourne residents – the insistent momentum of the got-anything-blacker? bass and drums propelling the post-Birthday Party guitar scrawls. “Ma Birthday” is a standout, sounding something like The Pixies if Frank Black grew up in the beer garden at the Tote – offhand and off-colour lines about a death party and a chap who notes, “I’m currently president of the Alphington Junior Football Club / I’ll have a kick with your kids if they’re not too buggered.” The entire track – and EP – adds up to some oblique and ocker miniature about suburban ennui, angst and chicken shops. The culmination of “Birthday” and the EP comes when, mid-song, Kris Buscombe exhales a startled and surprised cry of “fuck!” like he just dripped blood on the carpet. This is a bracing beginning for a band that deserves every word of positive talk currently being directed their way.